Chapter 14
ALLIE
I finish my article with two minutes to spare and drop it in the shared drive. By the time I log out of my work computer, my head is throbbing and my throat feels like it’s embedded with shards of glass. But my physical ailments are nothing compared to the humiliation I feel bone-deep.
He rejected me.
Ashton rejected me.
I told myself I kissed him to shut him up because I couldn’t handle what he was saying, but the truth is I wanted him to make me forget again. Because when he touches me, the world drifts away. My fight dissolves and all that’s left is a burning need. One it seems only he can fulfill these days.
I tried. After that first time at the beach. After I left him sleeping softly on the sand as his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. I tried going back to seeing other people after that. People who truly meant nothing, but it didn’t work. It didn’t erase him.
Then he kissed me, made me fall apart for him all over again, and he left.
I guess I deserved it, but it still pissed me off.
Enough that I wanted to hurt him back. Flirting with Craig was a low point.
Pretending to laugh at his obnoxious innuendos and touching his chest. I feel nauseous thinking about it.
At first, I thought he was just a harmless fuckboy trying to get in my pants, but he’s starting to make me uncomfortable.
He seems more…I don’t know, aggressive? Maybe even a little creepy.
Either way, I’m done with him. Even though it was my goal to get a rise out of Ashton, his accusation that I’m sleeping with Craig sent me into a tailspin.
What possessed me to kiss him in that moment, I’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter. He pushed me away. He rejected me. Because he wants answers I can’t give him. Ones I can’t even give myself.
My phone buzzes, shaking me from my thoughts. I grab it from my bag as I open the car door, but my heart sinks when I see the name. I’m not sure what I was thinking. That he would call to apologize? Or to demand an apology from me? Either way, it’s not him.
“Hi Mom,” I answer, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder as I slide into the car. I press the speaker button and prop it up in the cup holder.
“Hi, sweet pea.” Her tired voice comes through in a low whisper, so I turn the volume up to hear better.
“What’s going on? Is everything okay?” It’s a knee-jerk reaction to assume she’s in trouble or that something terrible has happened every time she calls now.
“I’m fine, honey. You don’t have to worry about me.” She’s still whispering, and that’s when I hear loud voices and cheering in the background. “I’m just over at Warner’s. I have an interview in a few minutes, but I wanted to catch you as soon as you got off work.”
I let out a relieved sigh. As much as I don’t want my mom to get a job at a rowdy sports bar in Rocky Falls, it’s the first interview she’s gotten since she lost her job almost a year ago.
“What’s the position?” I ask her, trying to keep any judgment out of my voice.
“Just bussing, but the ad said it could lead to waitressing or bartending shifts in the future.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat, but it feels worse, like the glass shards have multiplied. “That’s great, Mom,” I choke out.
“Listen, sweet pea. I can’t talk long, but…” She waits for a beat before continuing. “Celeste called me this morning.”
I grip the steering wheel, my nails digging into the worn rubber, and grit my teeth, a surge of anger working its way up my belly.
Celeste Thatcher—as in my grandmother. As in the woman who abandoned her pregnant teenage daughter because she refused to give her baby up.
I’m sure she would have insisted that my mother terminate the pregnancy if she had known about it in time, but my mom hid it from her until the day she gave birth. She was eighteen.
The Thatcher family is wealthy—beyond wealthy, and when their only daughter rebelled against them and rejected the arranged marriage they had set up for her, they threatened to disown her.
They didn’t actually follow through with it until they found out she had a baby with a boy from the next town over.
A boy with no money to his name. He had gotten into the school my mom attended on a scholarship.
The one Baybridge Prep sponsors each year to make themselves look charitable.
My mom has only ever told me the first part of the story.
I found out about my dad’s scholarship through my own investigation.
Needless to say, Celeste flipped out when she found out about me.
She gave my mother an ultimatum, and when my mom chose to keep me, she cut her off.
No money. No place to live. Nothing. She left us completely destitute.
We didn’t hear from her for eighteen years, and then one day she called out of the blue wanting to set me up with her friend’s nephew.
Mom screamed at her and told her never to call again, but she didn’t listen.
She calls about once a year now to offer my mom money in exchange for marrying me off.
The woman is a complete lunatic. She’s never even met me, for God’s sake.
“Allie. Did you hear what I said?” My mom’s soft voice comes through the speaker as I make a left turn onto the main road.
“Yes, I heard you. What did she want?”
“Oh, just to tell me that Margaret Kline’s grandson is a lawyer now and is looking for a wife, and how she’s been looking at your social media and has seen how much you have ‘filled out’ recently.”
“Jesus, Mom. What did you say to her?”
“I told her to fuck off, of course!” I startle slightly as I make the next turn. Mom rarely curses, and it always catches me off guard when she does.
“Damn, I’m sorry. I thought I had blocked her.”
“First of all, don’t ever apologize for anything that woman does. Secondly, there is no blocking Celeste Thatcher. She always finds a way.”
“I know.”
“Listen, honey.” There’s a muffled sound and then she speaks again, her voice even more of a whisper.
“When I turned her down, she mentioned she had another proposition for me. One of my father’s clients, who was recently divorced, needs someone to take to events.
She said she would pay me for my time. ”
I swerve the car when I realize I almost passed my street and nearly crash into a tree on the side of the road. “What?” I yell. “You have to be fucking kidding me. She wants you to be some rich guy’s arm candy? What the hell does she get out of that?”
“Allie, calm down.” She sounds worried. “What was that screeching sound?”
“Nothing. Look, Mom. You can’t do that. You said you were done with men after…”
“I know,” she cuts me off. “I need the money, Allie. I can’t keep taking yours.”
“You have an interview.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t…I didn’t have to fill out all the paperwork to get the interview. If they want to hire me, I’ll have to tell them.”
My heart sinks, the shards in my throat cutting deeper. My mother has been unable to get a job for the past six months because she’s a convicted felon. It feels so weird to even think about. My mother—who has never even gone a mile above the speed limit—is a convicted felon.
It doesn’t matter that it was self-defense.
Or that the douchebag deserved worse than what he got.
Personally, I would have cut the fucker’s dick off and hand-fed it to him bit by bit, so he got off pretty easy with a lamp to the head.
He didn’t even have the decency to die. But like I said, it doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that no one believed her.
So she served time for defending herself against a monster.
Funny, in all the books I read growing up, the heroes fight the monsters, not help them. Guess they were wrong.
I’ve never told anyone about my mom’s stint in prison—not even Emory. But Celeste somehow found out, and she’s been holding it over my mother’s head ever since, saying she could pull strings to get the felony dropped from my mom’s permanent record so she can get a job.
“Mom,” I say firmly. “We will figure it out. In the meantime, I’m making more than enough to help you out. Please don’t humor her. She’ll never stop if you show even the slightest interest.”
“I know, sweet pea—”
“Please, Mom. Promise me.” I’m begging her now, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that there are probably going to be permanent marks where my nails are digging into the rubber. “Promise me you won’t do it.”
She must hear the desperation in my voice because she sighs deeply and simply says, “I promise.”
“Thank you,” I breathe out, relief flooding my system. “We will deal with this together. Just like we always do.”
“I love you, sweet pea.” She takes a shuddering breath like she’s trying to hold back tears. “I have to go.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
Then she’s gone. Every single tear I had been holding back while I was on the phone comes to the surface at once.
I remove my glasses and wipe my eyes, black smudges from my mascara forming on the back of my hand.
That’s when it all comes back, the memories slamming into my chest like a freight train.
The last time I cried. The last time I let myself give in to the pain.
Black streaks running down my face. His warm hand coming to my back.
I tried to shrug him off, but he brought it back again and that’s when I allowed myself to fall into him.
My best friend stood there accusing me of betraying her, and I didn’t even have the guts to tell her about what my mom went through.
I knew how her story would have ended if she had stayed with her ex. Like my mom. Or worse.
Wiping the last tear from my eye, I put the car in reverse and back out of the ditch.
Laughter floats through the frigid night air as I exit my car.
There’s a soft glow coming from Emory and Luke’s cottage, and I can see them through the window.
Luke is holding a glass of something and is attempting to get Emory to drink it.
One of his green smoothies, I’m guessing.
He’s been making them ever since they found out Em is slightly anemic.
Emory hates them, but that doesn’t stop Luke from trying to get her to drink the concoctions because her doctor said she needs more iron and the mere sight of meat makes her nauseous.
Emory pushes his hand away, and the drink spills onto the front of his shirt.
He looks down, swipes a finger through it, and tastes it before tapping her nose with the same finger.
She feigns anger, and he sweeps her up in his arms like a bride.
“Now you’ve done it, woman,” he says, trying to sound stern, but there’s nothing but love and softness in his tone.
Emory’s giggles fade away as he carries her further into the house, presumably to the bedroom.
My lips turn up in a half-smile. I’ll never have what they have, but it brings me comfort to know that Emory got her happy ever after.
It makes me think there’s hope. Not for me, of course.
I’m a lost cause. But for my mother. She deserves happiness, and I’m going to do everything I can to give her a fighting chance at it.